The Caffeinated Engine Driver

So having stripped the paint from Skarloey I've been looking at lots of photos of the original Talyllyn locomotive to work out what I need to alter to make the model look more realistic. One thing I did notice was that while the model has goal on top of the drivers side bunker this never appears to have happened in real life. In fact having looked at photos that show inside the cab it's clear that the reversing lever stands in front of the bunker meaning that even if it did store coal you'd never be able to get at it from inside the cab. Having spoken with one of the locomotives drivers (he's a fellow NGRM forum member) he confirmed that the bunker now contains the air brake equipment and before that was fitted it was just an empty space. So that means the coal had to go. Here is the casting before I started to do anything with it and you can clearly see coal both sides of the boiler.


My first, rather unsuccessful, attempt to remove the coal involved using a razor saw and files but it was impossible to remove much without the risk of damaging the rest of the casting. I was a little stumped until I realised that I could use the milling attachment for the lathe to cut it out. The downside was that I had to wait a few days for a 3mm milling cutter to arrive (I picked this one as I could get it quickly from Amazon without having to pay postage). I still don't own a machine vise or milling table though, so the casting was rather precariously held in the 3 jaw chuck bolted to the lathe bed.


In the close up photo you can see how little I'd managed to remove using a file before starting with the lathe. In the overall picture you can also see I've fitted a cheap swarf tray from the lid of a tub of Anchor spreadable that nicely fits between the feet of the lathe by the headstock. Not much use when milling though, but should catch most of the swarf when turning on the lathe.

I don't currently have anyway of setting the depth of cut with the milling attachment so made I set the depth by eye to make a number of passes each taking off a small layer of the casting. It took quite a while as the lathe can't be run continuously as the motor gets hot so I left it to cool between each pass. The other problem was that while I tightened the 3 jaw chuck properly it wasn't gripping much of the casting and with the way it over hanged the edge of the chuck it wasn't very stable. This means the cuts were not very level, and it did spin slightly at one point as well. All problems that would have been solved by a machine vice, but I'm still pretty happy with the result.


It's not pretty but it did the job and gave me practice of using the milling attachment and I'll be fitting a cover to the bunker, as on the loco currently, so the surface will be hidden anyway.

I've now owned a lathe for over a month, but until Saturday all I'd done was strip and clean parts of it, I hadn't actually tried using it to turn or drill anything. Part of the problem was not really knowing where to start. You can read books and watch videos for hours and still miss really obvious things that can be the difference between success and frustrating failure. Also having made the investment the last thing I wanted to do was damage the lathe on my first attempt at using it. Fortunately Paul very kindly agreed to visit at the weekend to help get me started. So in between copious mugs of tea/coffee and slices of cake I finally turned the lathe on in anger to cut some brass.

Sensibly we didn't just shove some brass and a tool into the lathe we spent quite a bit of time checking it over and figuring out if it had any little quirks; like there is a bur inside the headstock which stops larger bits of brass sliding cleanly inside the shaft and which I need to look at sorting at some point. When we did make a start though we didn't mess about and went straight to turning a 7mm diameter wheel. This isn't as daft as it might sound as it turns out that the basic steps in making a wheel form a nice introduction to turning. You need to make some drawings first to figure out dimensions, then there is some facing and turning down to different diameters, then the use of a profile tool, then some drilling for an axle, and then parting of the wheel. In other words a nice introduction to lots of the common tasks I'm going to find myself doing on a lathe.


I didn't take any action shots, but these two nicely show the drawings and jottings as well as the finished wheel and a brief experiment in taper turning. I did make a few mistakes as we went along, so the wheel is far from perfect; mostly I didn't lock the tool post tight enough when parting off so it slipped slightly meaning I lost part of the flange. Of course the real test will be to see if I can repeat the process without Paul around to help, but that will have to wait. One of the problems we did discover is that the parting off tool I bought is huge in comparison to Paul's. Mine is just over 3mm wide whereas Paul's is closer to 1.5mm. Given the size of things I'm turning losing 3mm of brass is wasteful and will also put more strain on the motor. Fortunately Paul has kindly taken mine away to grind down so it's more useful as well as grinding more clearance on the left hand turning tool.

As well as turning we also fitted the milling attachment to check it also worked, which it does. Here you can see it in place and also see that I've bolted the whole machine to a chopping board (it was the best thing I could find), although from using it on Saturday I need to fit some rubber feet to stop is sliding around.


As well as showing me how all the tools and accessories I have work Paul also brought some of his tools with him so I've now seen how an indexing attachment works, as well as a collet chuck and some interesting step chucks. I can easily see all of them being really useful but I'm not going to buy any more tools until I've learnt to use the ones I have, or have a specific need for one, otherwise I'd quickly end up broke!

So, thanks again to Paul for driving over (and back in the snow). I really enjoyed meeting him, talking modelling, and learning to use the lathe. Hopefully he enjoyed himself too, or at least the cake!