After silver soldering the three pins for the Fowler traction engine (plans and castings by MJ Engineering) together yesterday I managed to clean them up this morning. If you read my previous post you will know I was not impressed with my work which normally goes well. I put this down to either or both the new flux and the new stick of silver solder. I fully expected the parts to fall apart and a lengthy cleaning up or even making new parts to be required, but the solder did flow in the right places!

Three pins for the Fowler A7 Traction Engine

After a clean up and close inspection I would say they are well and truly brazed together but the process was not as satisfying as the end result. Unusual I know. I still need to work out, perhaps using some test pieces, why things did not go as well as previous silver soldering but at least the pins were ok.

Today was a day of heat in the workshop. Fisrt chance for a while to get into the workshop and I took the opportunity to see if the Durafix aluminium welding system ( for more detail visit the following...)would join the two parts of the saw table together. As it turned out it did the job very well. I nervously and lightly tapped the two parts when the cooled down, gradually increasing the weight of blow until I gave up! I am confident that the parts are secured.

Durafix aluminum welding

I have decided that when it comes to fix the parts together that Durafix will form part of the methodology i shall use.

I then thought that since I had the kit out that I would silver solder three pins for the Fowler (two for the rear wheels) and I thought I would treat myself to a new stick of silver solder. I also got out a large tub of 'silver solder flux' bought from a local steel supplier and wished I never had! Whether it was the silver solder or the flux (or both) the normally simple job did not work well. So I have put them in the pickle solution and will see how well the solder flowed when the parts are cleaned up.

Silver soldering but is there a problem?

The day couldn't let me have two winners could it!

Well I decided that I would spend this week on the saw table (fingers crossed!) whilst I wait for a few items for the Fowler traction engine. Today I completed milling the inserts for the tensioner pulley system and the saw arm guide (see photo's below). Not a great deal done but at least I was out smelling the oil again! 

Once I have done the saw table i will get the tender to a first fixing state before putting it on the back burner to go full steam (sorry_) ahead with the two Seal engines. It seems so long ago since they were out of their boxes!.

Toothed gearing to adjust saw blade height

Fowler awaiting the tender

Fowler awaiting the tender

Well yesterday I managed to get a couple of hours in the workshop and today I got out there again! two days in a row...its a few weeks since I have been well enough to do that.

Having time away from the workshop has given me time to think and I have decided to bring the Fowler more to the fore, well over the next year or so.....The Seal engines are still the first priority followed by the saw table I am making then comes the fowler but next year I will not run multiple projects as I have the last two years. Instead the Fowler will be the only project (there are always the one off's) and a big push made to complete her. Once she has been steamed and a boiler test done she will be put up for sale. I don't see myself running her and its the building I enjoy. That should release funds for something the following year.....

Back to this year though.... I have managed to get the hornplates fitted to the boiler and it was a task I was not looking forward to but in the end it went very well. The picture below shows the assembly made of the parts that I have completed previously and I was surprised in how much has been completed. The gears seem to mesh well and the shafts seem to run nicely so thats a bonus. So I decided today to take the plunge and start on the tender!

Showing the rear of the A7 Fowler traction engine in 2" scale

I bought the tender sides and a brass pack from MJ Engineering and took the opportunity to buy the sides already flanged. Today was spent in forming the base and back plate which fits on the outside of the flanged sides (please see photo below). After a lot of careful 'fiddling' I managed to get a good fit up to the top part (coal extension is included in the MJ tender sides) of the tender although I still have some work to do on the very top part.

The measurements of the hornplates to set the width was done and the neccesary lines scribed (wrongly) on the flanged sides. Before drilling any holes I thought I would check the approximate fitt compared to the hornplates and something seemed to be wrong. re reading the manual soon showed me where I had gone wrong. I hade scribed the line the wrong way around! Instead of pleacing the tender side on the flat side then scribiing, I scribed the lines from the inside instead. After correcting this error the trial went much better.

Temporary trial fittings of the tender construcctions

At this point I decided to call it a day before I made a major mistake (drilling many holes is the next task) and will start afresh the next time when i will try and improve the fit for the coal bunker extension.

After I cut the first bar down to size and threaded the end I needed to move the bar out to allow the length to be cut. This is when the 'blindingly obvious' struck! Why not just reverse the bar and use the same tools, resulting in less changes as when both ends have been threaded, they could be parted off. Doh! But its something to remember for the future. A 'put it away' for future use moment.

Feeling quite pleased with myself I fitted the four legs and using a depth gauge got them all to the same size by filing. So the next task was to make the damper plate. After studying the plans for a while I couldn't see where the pivot blocks fitted. The answer was I hadn't finished the top flange. I don't know how I missed the fact that the top flange continues all the way around the ash pan and its onto the damper end that the pivots get secured to. So I now have to make the top flange continue all around the ash pan.

I had hoped to wrap up the whole assembly today but that's not going to happen now. I think there are at least another couple of session before it is finished. Drat!

A couple of images for your delectation........... 

Legs for the grate - Fowler 2" scale traction engine

Grate needs to be adjusted to fit

I spent quite some time on finishing the profile at the rear of the ash pan, before I can start on the damper. The cast iron casting of the grate was cleaned up on the milling machine and then drilled and tapped 4BA and that's about all a write up I can give really. One of those jobs where time doing was a lot more than time writing (for a change) so here are a couple of photo's.......

Fowler Traction Engine Ash Pan

The ash I am talking about came form the burning of the sacrificial board when silver soldering the top edge to the pan itself!

Today's ash pan session was spent by soldering up the four corners using the highest temperature silver solder I had. The reasoning being that I could use a lower melting point for the connection of the top edge to the
ash pan.

To hold the ashpan in place a couple of heavy steel blocks was placed on top and then lengths of silver solder cut and placed against the edge of the ashpan and into the flux.

The ash pan itself was then heated with the propane torch, bringing the ash pan to cherry red, where upon the solder rod melts itself and flows between the joint.

It is important that the flame does not impinge on the solder rod itself, melting it before the surrounding metal is ready. I started work on the left hand corner, moving the flame around to the otherside when the solder started to flow.

The ashpan unit was allowed to cool before placing it into the pickle solution. After cleaning up a little, the ash pan was then placed onto the up turned boiler and pleasingly the holes and pins were still aligned.

Annealing the ash pan proved difficult and a little frustrating, Well that's not quite true, the annealing was the easy part. The forming of the copper however was a little more difficult. No again, that's not quite true it was &**^%$ difficult!

I started at the corners as the build manual suggested and the copper was easily formed after annealing but there was a lot of copper which didn't want to go anywhere, but outwards. In the end I had to remove the excess metal and will have to silver solder the joins. I am not really pleased with the results but there is much work left to do so perhaps I will reserve judgement. Anyway I here are a couple of photo's for your delectation.

Fire grate on top flange of the ashpan

Trial fitting of fire grate in the yet to be finished ash pan

Today I got into the workshop later in the morning and didn't manage to get much done really. I didn't trust myself to do anything accurate but did manage to burn out my Proxxon drill! Its seems to be one of those months what with all the troubles with changing hosting plans and current poor health. So I know one present i would like for Christmas now, but the trouble is its need now also. The Proxxon is used quite a lot and will certainly be needed over the coming days so it looks like this poor pensioner is going to buy one.

The good news is that the copper for the ash pan arrived late morning so tomorrow I will be able to take my frustrations out on bashing metal. Hopefully there will be some progress photo's of trying to get the metal to go into a different shape than it wants to.........we shall see.

Today I managed to make a start on the Fowler traction engine Ashpan. A more comprehensive write up is on my model engineering website. However today was spent making cardboard and steel profile tools and a black and decker power file. And the file can certainly shift wood. The only problem is it gets spread everywhere! So it was a good decision to carry the work out of the workshop and into the garage. Of course that meant moving the Mk2 Jaguar out and it was a great temptation not to take it for a trip.

With the power file in use it was a case of making sure the dust mask and full face visor kept clean. Oh how I hate wood! The copper will not be here until early next week so I have until then to make the former.

More to follow..........