Replacing Head Gaskets on a Steam Locomotive
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- Опубліковано 11 лют 2013
- This video shows how we made and replaced two copper gaskets in the steam chest (the head) of a steam locomotive. The locomotive is an 0-4-0 narrow gauge engine built by the Vuclan Iron Works in 1917. It is owned and operated by the Georgia Museum of Agriculture in Tifton. The train runs every Saturday and on special events at the museum and is open to the public.
The engineering that went into building, even a small steam engine, is truly amazing! All done with slide rules and mechanical measurements!!!
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise! Steam locomotives are fascinating & ingenious piece of ingenuity! Appreciate you taking the time to demonstrate & explain in detail inner workings, & exactly what you're doing in repair. Thank you!
Terrific work, gents. I love learning about this old loco from you guys. Good luck keeping her on the rails for another hundred!
Great video. I love seeing how these machines were put together and I love Keith's explanation of how they work. I used to install electronic equipment and when we needed to straighten a piece of large diameter copper wire. We would cut it to approximate length, clamp one end in a vice, and put the other end in the chuck of an electric drill. Pull hard on the drill as the wire is twisted and it will straighten the wire. This process hardens the copper a little so for making a gasket annealing would be necessary afterward.
Very good at aligning the wire, straightening it, and forming the tight corners to exactly fit the groove. Not an easy thing, but he's a real expert at this kind of thing, obviously.
Thank you for making these videos! I am a member of the Minnesota Transportation Museum and you've given me a lot of great ideas!
I just started volunteering for our local vintage locomotive club. They've got an 1882 4-4-0 made by Dubs and Company. Your videos are fascinating and I can't wait to learn enough from these guys to get my own hands dirty.
I always wondered how those valves worked. Thanks!
I sure enjoyed this video. Being a retired school bus mechanic, I know the need for perfection and safety. I grew up in a shop/garage for heavy equipment, my father being a heavy equipment mechanic, and perfectionist!!! He also improvised making many of his needed parts/gaskets.
Thank you and we will visit tifton in the near future and also Andersonville.
+WILBUR DIXON Thanks Wilbur - hope you can make it down some time!
I like using the wooden wedges. A few months ago I pulled the intake manifold on my daughters car and was having a devil of a time getting it off. While taking a break I came across this video and decided to use the wedges like you all did. Piece of cake. Thanks you all.
+Jimmie Fender Glad that the little tip was helpful! I get great ideas from others on UA-cam all of the time!
For your knowledge, the gaskets are called the steam chest gaskets and the pieces you took off of the top of the valve are the balancing strips. What you are calling the head is called the steam chest and the valve is called a D-valve or a slide valve. It would also be a good idea to work your way up to 160 ft/lbs in increments of 50 or so lbs to get more of an even torque. With the nuts clamping down outside the gasket, it can twist the cover if it is clamped unevenly.
The head is the round plate on the front end of the cylinder? Concerning the torque on the studs, I don't know what size they are, but they should have a grade and the torque should be readily available on some engineering chart. I just googled the charts and found a bunch of info. Here's the first thing I found: www.dansmc.com/torque_chart.htm
I've been going back and looking at the videos I missed over the last few years. They are priceless. Thank you Keith.
Great job and great video. Now, if my Dad was alive to watch with me... So much of his knowledge about old engines is lost forever. I kick myself now.
Great work Keith. Watching you make that gasket was indicative of the love you have for the machines you work on.
Truly that engine is a labor of love for you and so many others that volunteer their time for your organization.
The amazing part to me is to think that those engines were built long before the advent of the things we take for granted today.
A ruler was the main thing they could use back then.
So many precision parts and they used steam power to build it and tables made of cast iron and just the work of many dedicated machinists of the day.
It's like the Apollo missions and equipment was built with slide rulers. Living in Houston I see a lot of NASA stuff and always remember watching them as I grew up in Iowa.
A testament to the ingenuity of mankind as a whole.
+Steven Thompson Thanks Steven - working on the steam locomotive is one of the most fun things I get to do at the museum! Always something new to learn and figure out as so much of the technology used to build this thing has more or less been lost.
Keith, I really enjoy watching your videos, especially the ones about repairing the museum's Vulcan 0-4-0. I am a machinist myself who unfortunately is out of the trade and misses the work very much. I am also one of the biggest steam power and train nerds west of the Mississippi, so seeing this sort of thing is a real treat for me.
Keep up the great work!
I see a lot of hobby machinists building toy steam engines. You get to play with the BIG toys!
For what it is worth, we did torque the bolts pretty much exactly like you mention - a little at a time and in a crisscross pattern. Unfortunately, the memory card in my camera ran out of space during this part of the job and we did not catch it and get a new on in until we were just finishing up with the final torque on the last couple of bolts. The whole tightening process took about 20 min from start to finish.
Great job Keith! You never cease to amaze me with your talent.
Great job and very informative,,,, its to chaps like you and all the volunteers working on preserved railways that we need to thank for these wonderful locos to still be running ,,,,, many thanks you have put together some very nicely presented videos ,,,
Keith, First I would like to congratulate you on keeping up with comments. It is good to see that you still respond to comments from your early videos unlike other you tubers. There was a trick I seen from a pipe fitter doing tubing work at a plant I was working at.. He received tubing in a roll so there wouldn't be as many joints. What he did was make a jig 30 or 40 feet long. One end would be clamped tight to the jig . The other end was clamped to a lever such that when you pulled the lever it would stretch the tubing a little bit. A bent up piece of uncoiled tubing became perfectly straight in a few seconds. I called it poetry in motion watching him work.
+ww_big_al Keeping up with all of the comments is challenging - and getting harder and harder as my subscriber base increases. But, I do try and read them all. Thanks for the comment and the story on the tubing! I would have like to have seen that myself.
Thank you so much for making this video, really hope to see more.
Very Instructive. Nice to see the guts of a Vulcan. Solution for valve timing: Obvious mistake... Middle One is the Exhaust port. Steam enters steam chest and goes through the uncovered small slot, and out between the other Two conjoined slots... Copper silver soldering/brazing, as per miniature locomotive boilers.. Alec Farmer's book. Love your work.
Copper and silver soldering.. Cupalloys in the UK The experts. It's steam pressure that holds the valves to the port faces on the cylinder blocks, the springs on top were an idea stolen from Hunslet for industrial locos on rough tracks, when not under steam. How-to copper brazing videos. K1.
Avoid RTV at all costs, it goes crumbly, and will wear all your valve gear down, gets everywhere. I have seen many people do this to miniature locos, where tolerances are stupidly small.. bad news.
Novus sealing gaskets.. what rolls royce use on their cars..... More suppliers for you!
Mr Rucker has some massive grip strength. Gotta say.
The man's forearms should be registered as weapons.
Fun to see that old engine still working.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching you work!
The smile of a man with a job well done...
Great craftsmanship
Really helpful for students like me...great to understand the mechanics of old machineries !!
thankyou so much for this video.........the detailed information and seeing the actual parts gives me such a better understanding of these awesome machines........complicated and mysterious at the same time..........those guys that designed, built , and repaired these things were geniuses..........thanks again for a GREAT VIDEO.........
Well done video, I learned a lot here and thanks for posting, now to go out back and fix that pesky leak, Love the old school tech,
Fascinating. I'm a computer programmer by trade with absolutely no knowledge in this field but this was great to watch.
Hi! My hobby is building plastic models, and now am starting a 1:35 scale steam locomotive. It's over 700 parts. Your video helps me understand how the valve gear works, and what some parts are called. My instructions don't help much. Many thanks! The locomotive is a German, WWII type BR 86, 2-8-2.
+Jaroslav J. Peterka Pretty cool stuff - the model engineering stuff can become addictive!
Thanks for another great video Keith and Crew! :)
+badazrod Thanks!
Badass Keith!
another fine job keith ! your the man !
+decoysk Thanks!
My 2 cents, just solder gasket with pluming solder to keep shape use copper based neverseize so gasket can find set during heating cycles and torque head in 3 stages 80,120.160, no need to reinvent the wheel. glad you dint have any steam cuts! cheers
EXCELLENT PRESENTATION
It is nice to see what other people are doing and that things are being done with good reason
Excellent video. Thank you for sharing.
+bluegrassengineer An oldie but goodie - thanks for watching!
Looking at the machined groove, it appears they may/could have used straight rod and cut two ends to fit the groove +5-10 thou on the short side and the long ones allowed to extend past the end of the mating surface. I hung around an old blacksmith shop in the 50's, and He may have said/done something like that. He was a Illinois Central Railroad contractor when Rail Road Xpress was a thing. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. My neighbor was a brakeman during steam days, and we lived at a water tower in Loda, Illinois.
I am glad I found this video..
I have had a locomotive in my back yard up on blocks for over a year now...
Ronald Baker Pretty cool - what kind of locomotive do you have?
Keith, I was absolutely captivated by the segment on replacing the copper gaskets on the 1917 Vulcan Steam Loco. I would LOVE to see all and any other .work on that engine. Only thing is, I doubt they used RTV in 1917. the year my mother was born. Thanks for the extremely interesting history lesson. PS. My grandfather ran the steam boiler at Stillwater prison back then.
Never seen brazing copper with copper filler before and it worked well done :)
Great stuff. Well done. I'm a (little) bit familiar with steam traction engines and this was very informative. Great instructional video, clear explanations, good shots and angles. Better than a lot of professionally made videos. Best of luck to you and the museum.
+mark carey Thanks - that was one of my very first videos made before I really was getting good at shooting and editing these videos so I am glad that you liked it. I personally think I have come a long way since this one was shot!
Keith Rucker - VintageMachinery.org
Good for you. What I'd really like to see is a vid illustrating (and explaining) the operation of the reversing lever and the associated gearing. Can't find anything much. You have a talent for this, for me anyway. I can understand what you're talking about.
Hi Keith.
Niice to view a pro at work. However, my experience with solid copper as gasketmaterial, on motorcycles, is that you need to anneal it by getting all the material to a uniform red glow, and then quench the gasket in water making sure no part cools down before other parts. In fact rather difficult, as as soon as you remove one part of the gasket from the flame it cools while the next part heats up. Uneven heating at quenching point makes for uneven hardness of the gasket, an that means a leaking gasket.
The easiest way to anneal wire is rolling it up in a coil and heating it with a large flame. Plate gaskets needs to be heated in a coal furnace to acheive a uniform temperature for quenching. If you get it right the copper gets very soft, just what you need in a gasket that is to hold high pressure
Copper gaskets are still used in specialty vacuum systems - how I got introduced to machining back as a chemistry student in the early 1980s actually.
Some of the crush gaskets are made from sheet metal, and some are made from tubing similar to refrigerator tubing, and some are made like these from copper wire.
Some systems require high purity copper - oxygen free copper in special cases, while others like this old steam engine can use a more common grade of metal.
I read one commenter's remarks that the copper is immortal - well, it is, in that it can be re-melted and recycled into new copper parts, but after being used as a gasket, the metal deforms and flows into a new shape - plastic deformation - and eventually you need a virgin gasket.
I learned a lot about steam engines! THANKS!
Very interesting video. Enjoyed it. Well done !!
We had both steam chests on this engine (each side) apart about a year and a half ago while doing some maintenance - the first time they had been apart in many years. At that time, we chased the threads on the studs with a die and the nuts with a tap. We considered doing it again this time, but the nuts could be threaded on by hand, so we did not see a need. I agree about the anti-sieze - and this was done but I think we missed getting it on video.
I am amazed at the complexity of the engine. How did they come up with this stuff way back then? Amazing
+tomhanksinbig Smart people. In some ways, I think they were smarter than most of the engineers we have these days. They came up with an idea, built it, and kept on improving it over sometimes years. All without computers and 3D modeling and a bunch of rules to follow.
Lol, yeah, technology is great when it works. One thing I was also taught was to chase (clean up) the threads on the studs and on the nuts and coat the studs with anti-sieze. That will lubricate the the nuts when they are being tightened so you will get a tighter joint as less force will be used to overcome the friction on the threads. A loctite seminar said that using loctite will add more friction (joint won't be as tight) to the threads than doing it dry and using lube is even better.
Really great explanation with lots of interesting insights. A small enhancement regarding copper gaskets: After last mechanical forming (you beats it into the groove) its a good idea to heat it again so the material will be softer. Each mechanical deformation hardens the material, called strengthening or strain hardening.
Yes, the Steam Chest is what some people call the Valve Chest as it contains the valve that lets the steam in and out of the engine.
I guess that you could probably silver solder the joint - I think it would work fine. But, the guy who taught me how to do this taught me to weld the copper joint - which was the way he was taught by the guy who taught him, who was taught that by the guy who taught him..... I would worry that the silver solder joint may not compress like the rest of the copper, but I don't know if that would be the case or not.... Interesting idea though!
It sure seems that a copper-copper joint would be superior as a gasket. I have never seen that technique before - great job.
My respects to you and your friends, people like you made the USA the greatest country in the world, not the government that you have to suffer, 1950s,60s,70s, The best cars in the world were made in the USA, now with all the big corporations focused on profits the whole car industry in the USA is a shame.
Well done. VERY interesting, thanks.
Keith, I really think the museum you help are so lucky to have you around. I always learn from you. Can u do side heads on matcher molder.
I would have to go back and look, but as a general rule, you need to anneal it each time we do anything that would work harden it. Copper will get harder and more brittle each time it is hammered on, bent, or compressed. To make it soft again, just heat it up with a torch and let it cool in the air.
nice work . i like the time spent video taping the entire job.
+cosprint Thank you!
Hi Keith i use a Wurth product called AL1100 which is a alumiuim/copper mixture its brilliant also dont forget to coat the binding surfaces i.e between the nut and surface its gripping makes a big difference (old surfaces ! ) Love your work Chris
you had it right the first time, one push every four strokes, intake, compression, power, exhaust, down, up, down, up, power stroke is the only one pushing, and one minor note always work from the center out in torguing down a head, cast doesn't tend to give but better to give it room to move
+TheDarkalkymist What can I say, I am not a motor guy. I would rather work on a steam engine!
One place where you absolutely have to join the ends of the copper gasket is the o-ring on the steam dome. If you ever see a leak there, it must be fixed ASAP. Steam under pressure will cut both the copper o-ring and the mating surfaces if it is allowed to flow thru the joint.
A trick is to run the wire through a brake line straightener then only anneal where the bends will be, bend the corners and then anneal the whole thing as it will keep the wire straight for longer and less finessing is needed.
I like it! I was wondering if you were going to stage the torque process, and for all practical purposes, you did that. Those are old studs, and I'd likely have done it in 50 pound increments just to load them gently, even if they are big-uns.
julietwhiskey01 I'm late as always, but I agree 100%. same method used in torquing any pressized head, and are plate. given the heat and pressure that is under, I would've thought at least torqued down two more times after the first set were done initially. thus allowing for the copper to seat in, and the head studs to flex, and relax a couple of heat cycles.
THANK YOU...for sharing.
Thanks for watching!
when i overhalled a 25 ton steam winch. No steam to test it. I used comressed air. It ran fast and sounded terrible. Deadline on commision. I went to barge. To my amazement .It sounded and worked perfectly. ( means to an end comes to mind ) I had been running it far too fast.
I bet they held the lower gasket in place with string in the day. In two directions like a christmas ribbon on a present and at last moment cut and pulled it out. In racing engines flat copper gaskets are used but for a better seal they o-ring the head using the ring to cut into the copper. "The use of o-rings is highly recommended to seal combustion pressure, most notably when there are only 4 head bolts per cylinder. O-ring grooves can be cut into the block or cylinder head. The proper dimensions for .041 stainless wire are: .040 groove width; .030 to .032 groove depth. When cutting/installing stainless o-ring wire, file the ends square to provide a tight joint for the best seal possible."
Good idea!
I knew that but thought that if you had that it might have sealed longer. When annealing copper you can quench in water to speed things up as it makes no difference to the annealing, it's not as if it was steel.
I don't know about you but I get a great kick out of keeping things running long after their sell by date, I guess you do too having seen some of your videos. Keep up the good work.
Keith, I was always told to heat a solid copper gasket to cherry red and then quench it, to soften it, but I’m old and things have changed over the years . Regards Frank
you dont quench it, simply let it cool on its own, my father had me do this for re-using copper gaskets, and copper pipe in general, ....
u done greate for youngsters i salute you
I thought I would add some info. I just retired from Trane, Inc mostly as a brazer. I was qualified to braze copper to copper, copper to brass, and copper to steel. You COULD braze the joint but the braze alloy is harder than copper. I also used to work on tourist railroads. The small valve at the front of the valve chest is called a snifting valve. It closes when steam is admitted to the valve chest and pushes the piston shut. When the locomotive is moving and steam is shut off, the pressure in the valve chest drops opening the valve admitting air to the cylinders so that gasses, cinders, etc. can't be pulled into the valves and cylinders by vacuum--this would be BAD! The arrangement on top of the actual valve is to reduce the force the steam pressure pushes down on the valve and reduces the friction between the mating surfaces. Since the center of the valve is basically atmospheric pressure this area of the valve does not contribute to the total load on the valve. If the valve were 6 x 10 and an area of 3 x 4 were removed see how much load would lessened. If the steam pressure is 150 psi, that would be 9000 lbs and 1800 lbs or a total of 7200 lbs. These numbers are for illustration.
Keith, on a machine of this age, what threads are used? In the UK we used several different threads such as Whitworth, Unifide National Course (UNC) and many others.
36:15 - I used a copper spray adhesive on a Wisconsin S-12D engine - I had to take the head off to free the stuck exhaust valves. it's a Wisconsin engine thing: you always stop/store the engine with the crankshaft on TDC, as this will have both valves closed and the stems exposed to lubricant; Wisconsin recommends that a petrol/oil mix (the manual details the procedure) be squirted into the intake, the engine will run smoky and the exposed valve surfaces will get a film of oil and won't rust and seize.
Head gaskets were not available, at least from my Wisconsin engine dealer, and in the course of time I spoke to fellows that restore antique cars - T-model Fords, etc - and they said to reuse the old gasket with a coating of copper spray adhesive - let it go tacky and then assemble the head to the cylinder in the usual way - it still keeps compression 10 years later!
68 was the last time i did any steam work or boiler repairs we had babcock and wilcox m type with controlled superheat 600 psi 850 derese superheater
Very interesting 🤔
You are correct. It hit me that I said that wrong when we shot that video when I re-watched it a while back. It is hard to keep all the details straight while the camera is rolling.....
Keith your mechanical ability never ceases to amaze me and that is coming from a automotive mechanic with 25 years of experience under his belt. You do a wonderful job!
Did every steam train use the piston setup like you have or was there a technology that came about that replaced the piston system?
As always thanks for your time and effort!
***** There were several attempts made both before and after WW2
to adapt steam turbines to use on locomotives. They were never well suited to use on railroads for a litany of reasons,
but they were capable of producing massive amounts of power, upwards of 6,900 HP. Look up Steam turbine locomotives and/or the Pennsylvania Railroad's class S2 for further info.
***** thanks for the information. Seems very interesting. Going to do some research on the subject. I know it has nothing to do with the conversation but my left arm is covered with a tattoo of a steam engine. I am not a tattoo kind of person but it was done as a memorial for my dad and grandfather who worked on the old reliable. L&N railroad.
+PennLineProductions I think one of the most damning problems experienced with a steam-turbine locomotive was that such an engine had almost no pulling power from a standing start or low speeds. Steam locomotives were already starting to get beat handily by diesel electrics in standing start and low speed pulling ability by the end of WW2, and a steam turbine locomotive with a fairly normal-size load of cars behind it practically needed a diesel's help just to even get the load moving. Once moving though, steam turbine locomotives could absolutely FLY, pulling their loads with them, at speeds that a similarly-built piston engine would have flung itself to pieces at. But just the fact steam turbine locos had no power whatsoever a standing start and slow speeds is what doomed them.
The steam-turbine concept was given one last shot at viability in 1954 by the Norfolk & Western Railway in the form of the Jawn Henry, a steam-turbine ELECTRIC locomotive that tried to fit a water-tube marine-type boiler and turbine-driven generator on a locomotive chassis. It was built as Norfolk & Western's last shot to keep itself a coal-fired railway since coal mining traffic was its biggest source of revenue and it wanted to keep itself coal powered to help keep the coal mines going. Unfortunately, the Jawn Henry proved not to be viable, as its water-tube boiler just could not hold up to the vibrations and pounding that it was subjected to in revenue service and eventually the engine was scrapped without even having accumulated 10 years of service, meanwhile the Norfolk & Western accepted the inevitable and dieselized.
FYI; its RTV for Room Temperature Vulcanizing Sealant not RVT !
Keith, I enjoy watching your videos.
Questions
1. Does the poppet valve on the front of the slide valve casing be an air valve for better idle? We in Germany have such valves mounted, just to have a better idle abilities to engines, especially those with low power or slide valves.
2. Can you show the oil check valve in more details?
I made a video on two of those oil check valves for steam cylinders - you find them in my channel. I just want to compare it.
3. Keith, slide valves usually have outside admission, to the center hole is usually the OUTlet, not the inlet. You explain 11:04 that the steam is coming from the center... Does you locomotive has a different steam admission for slide valves?
(Just to explain: The steam usually comes thru the small ports on the outside into the valve gasket, it generates a pressure ontop of the slide valve, pressing the valve to the surface, sealing it. By sliding, there is the second outer port opend by the slide valve, because uncovered by the valve itself. So steam can enter by this port into the cylinder. On the other hand the valve with it's internal shape covers the opposite second outer port with the middle port, which is the connection of this cylinder port with the exhaust port in the middle. This is called outside admission.
Different is this if you have a engine with a piston valve. Here two pistons are mounted on the valve rod. The steam enters inside those pistons. The flanges of the pistons no sliding over the cylinder ports or the exhaust ports, the exhaust ports are the outer ports, the cylinder ports, as above the second outer ports. If the piston valves slides, it connectes the space betwen the pistons with the cylinder inlet port, making a conntection from the valve steam inlet to the cylinder inlet port, while on the opposite side of the valve, the flange of the outer piston sealing surface uncovers the opposide cylinder port, connecting the space behind the valve piston of the valve piston casing with the exhaust port in the casing. This is called inside admission)
4. Slide valves usually have tight packings, but should be able to be moved by hand. in 13:10 I can see it does not move.. Wouldn't you change the packing, to make it move better? With any PFTE/Aramide Packing you would have a easy sliding ability and a good sealant ... We use Chesterton MB1400 packing, and it has pretty less wear.
What you use?
5. because you disconnected the valve rod - Did you recalibrate the slide valve position?
for a good run, this recalibration is essential for having a smmoth run and even spaced exhaust beat. If this isn't done, the engie will run uneven and having an uneven exhaust rhythm, also the performance isn't well.
Did you recalibrate the slide valve?
I think you got it the wrong way round at 11:00, being a slide valve engine it is outside admission, the steam enters the steam chest around the outside of the valve, the valve slides and opens the port to the cylinder, the cavity inside the D valve direct the used steam from the cylinder (outside ports) into the centre port (Exhaust port). Regards Worksengineer
Keith just a question what sealents do you prefer for steam restorations on the piping dad and I used a lot of Permatex 2
2:20 - this valve is used to prevent a massive vacuum when the loco is drifting - at least, that is my understanding of it - I was in the rear carriage of a train Canberra, ACT, Australia, and when it was was being pulled backward, the 'snifting' valves, were operating when the driver (engineer...) closed the throttle and you could hear the valves working; it saves having to go to full gear and have some steam always going into the cylinder when drifting...
Uncle Keith was just showing you how not to remove a stuck nut from a socket head attached to an air rattle gun. Sticking your finger into a stuck nut is NOT a good idea, unless you are tired of having all your fingers. One accidental touch of the trigger and you can spin your finger completely off. And yes it hurts BOYS and girls!!!
Copper also has the tendency to age harden - just sitting on a shelf for a couple of years will let it get hard. You'll hear some old-timers talk about it work hardening from the vibration of trucks passing the store-room in the alley of an old factory!
A few corrections on your explanations, the strips on top of the valve are not for pushing it down, those are called Balancing Strips. The reason for these is because it is an outside admission locomotive, which leads me to your next minor error, the ports you said were exhaust ports are actually admission ports from the dry pipe into the steam ches. Water is laying in them because of the steam that was trapped in there but had no place to go. The inner two ports are for the top and bottom end of the cylinder, and the exhaust port is actually the center most port. Outside admission means the steam is admitted into the steamchest on the outside of the valve, explaining the placement of the inlet ports from the dry pipe. The purpose of the balancing strips is to actually prevent the live steam surrounding the outside of the valve from getting on top of it and pushing it down onto the port face, because the more pressure the top of the valve is exposed to, the more it will wear, and more oil is needed to compensate for the extra resistance. The extra resistance also plays a big part in wearing out parts of the valve gear, and there are many to wear in the Stephenson's arrangement. So the balancing strips help to keep the forces "Balanced" as the name implies, so the valve will just sit on the port face and glide across instead of being forced down onto it. That's the theory behind them and how it would work in an ideal world, but there is still some steam leaking past the strips. However, it did make a marked improvement on the way valves wore. The valve on the front of the steam chest you were referring to is called a Snifter valve. It's not for preventing steam from building up in the steam chest to avoid the engine taking off, they're actually for vacuum relief, and it was essential for this engine to have them when it was coal fired. When you shut down the throttle and the engine is coasting, because the engine is still moving it still wants something to occupy the void made in the cylinders as the pistons go through their stroke, but since the throttle valve is closed, there's nothing there to occupy the space coming from the admission side, but since the exhaust side is open to the atmosphere via the blast nozzle, flue gases and cinders will be sucked back into the cylinders which you definitely don't want, since their abrasive nature will destroy things in a hurry. So to prevent this, the snifter valve was introduced, and added to the admission side, so as the engine coasts and steam chest pressure drops, the valve drops open and allows air to relieve the vacuum created by the cylinders in place of the steam, preventing the cinder sucking and ultimately saving the internal surfaces of the cylinders. Hope this clears things up :)
I was just about to write a comment questioning that but thought I better check to see if someone had done it first! I am in the middle of making a steam locomotive (3 1/2" gauge) and on mine the centre port is the exhaust to the blast pipe. so I was curious why they would do it the other way round.
I agree. The boiler steam pressure would float the slide valve if it was fed under the slide valve and the lubricator line would never get oil into the piston. The steam has to be fed from the outer ports over the top of the slide valve.
In the UK the thing that you are calling the head is called the “steam chest” which for a slide valve is a good name since it looks like a chest and holds steam.
Here in the States, most of us call it a valve chest. But I think we are both right.
I can certainly see why a new gasket was not made the last time. It looked to be a pain to make. I'm sure the old-timers had tools and tricks to make the job a little easier (although I doubt it was ever considered easy).
I would have torqued them beginning on the inners and finishing at the corners at 100, 130 and then 160. Starting in the corner at 160 is a no-no. (Nevermind, I saw your comment below).
Very good video. I was wondering, what kinds of tools did they use back when they built this locomotive?
We re-check after running when things cool, the heat and pressure stretch things. The same with high performance engines.
Mr Keith some of them studs look a narley
The casket being too short after welding. I suggest this occurred because both ends were clamped during the welding process.
The heating process try's to expand the copper but since it is restrained at both ends and not able to expand it results in lateral expansion of the copper. on cooling the copper shrinks over the length of heated section between the clamps to a smaller size.
The way to do it is to only clamp one side or if not possible keep the clamps as close as possible and therefore reduce the length over which the shrinkage will occur..
Well Done Keith - Lloyd - DigiTek
Thank you Lloyd!
Great work appears it is much better than before. Pressurized Steam will cut hole in metal within no time under high pressure. Try keep it to spec's or much better than factory design. I was more interested what ever happen to the factory type set-up? I like try keep things factory if not much better designed. Need to on Cast I pre-heat it. Keep it hot. Use Nickel Tech-Rod @99's for root & single pass, Move to Tech-Rod @ 55's for build-up. That SMAW style. Do pretty good, Better than cast whole part over the money & time issue's. Recast it I guess would be the proper way. I don't know them guys very well near my house. Them guys are running them Shay's on Cass Railroad in Cass WV. They into keeping these Steamers going too. I don't know them very well. But that might be a extra person's to know if you don't already know a few. People don't understand lots & very lots of hard work into keeping these engines running right. Keep up the great work. Look on brite side. They not setting there rusting away for years not used. And stay SAFE I saw that post from elitejohnip. Finger might come in handy later.
Hi Keith,
I enjoy your videos, but I thought I heard an error in your description. I thought you said "steam comes from the center port under the slide valve". That would be "inside" admission, which would lift the slide valve off of it seat. The center port you identified, is the exhaust port. The "outside" admission steam in the steam chest would push the slide valve down on its seat. I think the steam port you were looking for is just to the rear of the exhaust and cylinder ports, just inside the steam chest.
Dave
Keith love your vlogs. I thought the process of annealing copper included a sudden quench rather than normalising which allows for slow cooling?
For thin pieces cool fast enough to anneal them. Quenching would be required for thicker pieces.
Let it be known that Keith Rucker is belovèd of Vulcan. And also that I like his videos.
Kieth - Can't tell from your video but it appears that you didn't torque from the center of the top casting to outside edges as you would on a car head?
Hi there, did you anneal the copper gasket the last time or just re-use as was?
just wondering if a silicone Oring would have did the job in a 1/100th the time.
Keith, I know this is an old video but I just watched it for the first time and enjoyed it very much, as I do all your other videos.
I noticed that when you were replacing the copper wire gaskets, that in both halves of the castings, that the groove that the wire fits in to were cut all the way to the ends of the castings so that the corners crossed over one another forming an open “+”. Watching you bend around corners and braze the wire together on one side made me wonder if perhaps the groves were cut that way for a purpose, as most engineered things are.
Perhaps, instead of bending corners and brazing one side the wire could have been cut into four pieces with two of the sides extending all the way out to the edges and the opposing sides fitted into the channel butted flush to the inside. Thusly done you probably wouldn’t have to completely disassemble the apparatus to change gaskets, you could loosen the bolts to form a gap big enough to pry the four pieces out and slide in pre-cut pieces in place and tighten it back to specs. The butted pieces should flatten out to form a leak proof gasket.
Keep the videos coming and the great work your doing!
Well, I cannot say for sure how they were done originally, but all I can do is try and copy what we saw when we took it apart. I imagine that the grooves were cut that way because it was easier to cut a straight line than to mill around those corners in the days before CNC!