Reinventing Hell Raritan
Yes, there are several very good throttle designs out there already, so why not one more attempt?It was a boring lunch hour today so to pass the time I drew up some sketchs for a throttle design I've had on my mind. It's not a new design as it's based on the ones used on the 15' gauge Redwood Valley Railway, but does vary in that it's meant to fit into the Steam Dome of a 3/4' scale engine.For a size reference, the pivot holes are 3/32' (.094') and the valve is 5/16' (.313') diameter. Total valve travel for Full Trottle is about.21'The three main points in the design were; 1) For an linear orifice area increase as the throttle is opened (as opposed to a ball valve). 2) A 'safe' throttle that will want to close itself if any linkage fails.
3) An internal throttle as opposed to Kozo's designs or a ball valve on the backhead.Comments (Compliments, Concers, Finger pointing & Laughing) are all welcome.Cheers,Curtis F.Attachments5/16' Diameter Valve. That is very nice for sure!I'm with gwrdriver on the rapid admission of steam with the current groove design. On our last Allen Chloe I spent some time reshaping the throttle opening to try and get a slightly larger spread on steam while opening the thing up.
Round hole with a large triangle groove filled into the back side that would in theory be a progressive opening. It kinda worked but not really that well.So onto the next example.My buddy Jim here in town just built a 1.5' scale Heisler with almost the exact throttle as my last Chloe. It was behaving much the same and was pretty much on or off. We chatted one day about the design from Bill Harris on the Mich-Cal engine where the throttle uncovered individual holes as it opened up. One small followed by a little larger and finally 1 more. We took it one further however and made it into a series of small holes in the form of a triangle, 'Think Bowling Pins.' His throttle uncovers 1 then 2 then finally 3 holes.
Reinventing Hell Raritan Nj
It works super slick and has shown real smooth action.Could you do this here where you actually drill holes into the center at different locations all of which feed into the center port and down to your dry pipe???? Might be slightly easier to fabricate as well?Otherwise I love it!!!Cheers,Robert M. I would offer a thougt about using o-rings to seal a throttle.again the safety man speaking:What happens if you lose or damage the o-ring?You will have a major steam flow into the throttle and possibly a run-away engine that you cannot stop or control except by pulling into mid-gear.Given the 'druthers' of maybe a bit of metal-on-metal steam seepage vs. Possibility of a major problem, I would choose a bit of leakage.Industrially, a design such as your proposal isn't allowed because of such a possibility.O-rings are used as secondary seals in conjunction with metal-to-metal seats that will contain the majority of the flow even with the loss of the o-ring.Modifying the design to have metal on metal seats in addition to the o-ring wouldn't be that big a task for someone with your design abilities. Bill Shields wrote:O-rings are used as secondary seals in conjunction with metal-to-metal seats that will contain the majority of the flow even with the loss of the o-ring.The primary seal is the valve in the bore. If I hone the valve body and polish the valve correctly there shouldn't be any major steam seepage between the two. There is a span of the valve between the O-ring and the beginning of the holes, a 'dead space' in the valve (maybe not enough.), meant specifically for this.
The O-ring is just for good measure.Checking the O-ring would definitely be part of the yearly boiler inspection. And would be checked more frequently during the first year of operation just to see how it holds up.I'm with you 100% on your concerns! Thank you for the feed back.AttachmentsNow with holes! No more ^.&!%# setup to mill angled V slots. Curtis,That is super sweet now!!!
I think I can modify Gene's cast throttle to work in the same fashion for my next 2 engines. I used a ball valve on the rail masher and I don't like how it works so far. There is a sweet spot where it really comes on strong and I would prefer it to be a bit more smooth in operation.
Dad's Mercer 0-4-0 is the same way in that it really takes off at one point. This does change of course when there is a bit more load on the engine but it still rubs me the wrong way.
The progressive hole deal is slick and works well.Is that laid out to be a steel boiler on your Raritan/2-8-0 loco? Or is it et for TIG welded copper?
Either way I love it.Nice work as usual.Robert M. Herman,Yes, that's a Turret pipe from the dome to the Backhead. I've done that on 15' gauge and fullsize engines, it works great. It helps more on a straight boiler as the top of the boiler is closer to the water level, much less chance of Working (sucking) water into the pipes.The down side is it takes up space in the Steam Dome, and it can be a water trap.
If then engine isn't warm enough after you blow down at the end of the day to evaporate all the water out of the pipe it will rust through. Or at the end of the day use an air hose from a turret connection to blow back through the pipe to make sure all the water is out.Here's a.
Curtis,Why not just make a double beat regulator and be done with it?What you are proposing is basically a single beat regulator. In full size practice they were used very early on, but were dumped due to the extraneous loads on pins, linkages, and on the driver opening and closing the regulator.
Breakages were common, as was the driver having to put his foot on the backhead to adjust the regulator (pull type).Lets take a quick look at what you have proposed, and you'll see why they were dumped.Let's assume that the bobbin area is 1 square inch and your boiler opperates at 100 psi. This will make it easy for us. At 100 psi and 1 square inch, gives us 100 lbs force to open the regulator. Ayat manzil pdf download. Assuming that your linkage provides about 3:1 reduction (as a guess from you drawing), then that is 33 lbf that you have to apply to the pin and linkage back to your regulator handle.
That's a fair bit of force continually trying to shut your regulator. When your engine is under a reasonable load (which most never get to) there may be 50 psi in your steam chests. That is the only time that the force is reduced to 16.5 lbf on the pin and regulator shaft. You will need a very strong and fine ratchet to be able to hold your regulator at the desired setting. Otherwise you will need to rebuild the ratchet every few years if you run it reguarly.Lets have another look at it from another angle.
Lets assume that the valve bobbin requires 1/4' travel to go from closed to fully open. The end of your primary linkage will need to move 3/4' (assuming the same proportions as above). This is amplified again, at the regulator handle, if we assume that there is only a leverage of 2:1. This will provide 16.5 lbf on the end of the regulator handle at starting, with 1.5' of travel being required for full opening. That doesn't seem like a lot of travel, but full size practice was to have at least 4:1 leverage on the handle.
Assuming that, then the end of the regulator handle must now move 3' for full opening. It is probably getting a bit out of scale for the movement, bit the forces on the end of the handle have dropped only 8.25 lb.The requirements for the pins and linkages are going to be very large compared to scale fittings, to be able to take the forces and allow large enough bearing surfaces that wear is not a major problem.This is exactly why in full size practice, that the single beat regulator was dropped fairly quickly, compared to other ideas. In full size, the regulator may well have been 8' in diameter, which at 200 psi would give you 10000 lbf holding it closed at starting.In full size, the atempted solutions were varied. They tried slide valves, disk valves, ball valves (which had huge sealing and wear problems), and even piston vlaves. Unfortunately, none of these had the safety of an automatically shutting valve in the event of something breaking.
Then some bright spark came up with the idea of the double beat regulator. It was soon established as the prefered regulator, as it required low forces to operate, was self closing in the event of a breakage, low maintence, and could be made to give very fine starting flows.As I have only tried to attach one picture years ago (and now can't remember how), I'll have a go, but don't blame me if it doesn't work.Below is a sectional drawing of a standard double beat regulator. You will see that steam is fed from both sides of the bobbin at the same time. The radius of the scollups that make the guide flutes is your fine steam control for starting etc. It's pretty well self explanitary.
The only thing missing is the push rod, which is suposed to be a loose fit and has a nut and washer on top to ensure that it can't fall into the boiler.If you have any questions, ask me./imgCheers,Phill.Attachments.
We recently looked at an apartment we loved in Raritan but we are unfamiliar with the area coming from NYC. The area seems quaint and cute but I’m not sure about the crime and statistics.
We visited the local police station and they told us there are drugs and a lot of foot traffic from the train. The officer said personally he wouldn’t live here but he lives on a farm so not to take his word. He said a few years ago he would have told us to run but now it’s a good starting point to save up for a home. It left us a bit confused. Any input would be appreciated. I'm from Somerville, grew up in Bridgewater. Raritan is a fine town, there's some more development coming online, and I think it'll grow a bit more.
The downtown has a couple places to eat and drink, and you're obviously proximate to Somerville.Like any town, there are good pockets and not-so-good pockets. And like any town in the area, it seems there are drugs. Can't avoid it. I ride on a rescue squad in Bridgewater and I see too many calls for ODs, and I don't think anyone would caution you on living there. It's New Jersey, there's drugs. I took the train there for the last 3 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a police officer doing anything except directing traffic or sitting in his car with his lights on during construction.
There are definitely a fair amount of people living there who have low income, but there are never people who hang out on the street or cause trouble. Back in the day it was all Italians, now there are a lot of Hispanic people. But just look at Somerville and the way it is shifting, Raritan is basically the same town and it will go the same way. Well as far as union county, I like it a lot.