Help with a Stuart Turner Henley

#15 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 30 Nov, 2023 10:08
Hi,

The inside of the hull was sanded to remove the old varnish. Some of the varnish almost flaked away, the sections around the boiler the varnish was baked in place, and not wanting to use paint stripper it was just smoothed down and varnished over. The filler used on the outside of the hull was smoothed down and a first while primer/undercoat was applied.

Between painting and sanding I have been playing with an old Stirling engine that didn't work to get it going. https://youtu.be/_3pT8m0bXe8

Take care Tony

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#16 Reply
Posted by RedRyder on 01 Dec, 2023 08:58
Great progress, Tony..!!

#17 Reply
Posted by Steamloco on 01 Dec, 2023 10:35
Looking good!

#18 Reply
Posted by RichSteamTx on 01 Dec, 2023 10:40
I agree, the wood work you are doing is amazing! I love watching the progress.

#19 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 02 Dec, 2023 06:41
Hi,

The hull has had two coats of undercoat applied; it will need at least several more before a top coat can be considered. The hull however is pretty smooth and as the next major job is to mount the engine in the hull it was decided to fit the propeller and rudder tubes in place. An old ST oscillating engine restored many years ago and not used had it's colour changed from red to Brunswick green which is sort of a Stuart Turner green? Whether the engines were painted I don’t know, possibly as many were home built if they were painted they might be any colour. The propeller and rudder tubes were glued in place and clearances checked. As yet I haven’t been able to figure out from photographs how the tiller is connected to the rudder shaft. There is a 3/32” (nearly 2.5mm) plain hole in the rudder shaft, so a 2mm brass rod threaded 8BA on its end was fitted, held in place with a couple of nuts. There is a cunning plan to maybe leave the stern deck loose so that another deck fitted with rudder only radio control could replace it and having an easily removed tiller might help this. This I had done on one of the Bowman Eagle copies I made some years ago and it worked really well.

Take care Tony.
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#20 Reply
Posted by Stoker on 02 Dec, 2023 12:17
Those Stuart ST engines are great little runners!

#21 Reply
Posted by St Paul Steam on 02 Dec, 2023 18:13
smashing progress so far Tony.

#22 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 03 Dec, 2023 04:20
Hi,

The next job was to make a mount for the engine. It is the first totally new part to be made for the model; previously it has been just refurbishing existing parts. When scratch building a copy of a Bowman Swallow knowing what a part looked like was relatively easy as they only supplied ready to run and other than minor modifications made by Bowman they all started off the same. Also there are relatively plenty of the models still around to copy.
The Stuart Turner Henley is totally different, it was available ready to run, but each individual component was available separately; the hull painted or not, the boiler and boiler fittings, the propeller shaft and propeller, rudder shaft and rudder and the engine was available ready to run or as a casting kit. So this begs the question when is a Henley a Henley? The factory made one, yes; but if home built; do all Stuart components need to be used? Another problem is that there doesn’t seem to be many Henley’s about to look at; at least I haven’t found one yet.
Back to the build, photographs show that usually the engine propeller shaft coupling is a coiled spring and the engine sits on what looks like an aluminium plate held by screws to the hulls longitudinal battens. Also photographs and drawing show that the engine is at an angle so that it is in line with the propeller shaft; though some photographs show quite a curve in the coil spring taking out the misalignment.
Hopefully the photographs will show how the first attempt at mounting the engine was archived. It might not be how Stuart Turner envisaged it; but it will work. If further information comes to light the engine mount might get changed.

Take care Tony.

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#23 Reply
Posted by RedRyder on 03 Dec, 2023 13:08
Wow...!!!

#24 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 04 Dec, 2023 09:42
Hi,

The outside of the hull has been sealed, filled and has now had four hand painted undercoats that were rubbed down after each coat and it is looking reasonably good. It still needs probably more coats of paint and rubbing down with some fine wet and dry paper. Alas now in early December in Old South Wales it is cold and damp, not good for spraying the final top coats. So the hull has been hand painted with a white top coat until the spring when I can sit in the garden with a bowl of warm slightly soapy water, wet and dry paper, and the hull. Also hopefully the temperature will be more contusive to spray painting in the garage.
Back to a wet December; coupling the engine to the propeller shaft, a helical spring seems to be the usual coupling, but photographs of other types of probably replacement couplings have been seen. As the propeller shaft came with half of one of these other types of coupling it was decided to make the other half of it.

The couple made consists of a 36 mm disc of 2 mm brass sheet hard soldered onto a 10 mm diameter boss that fits on the engine’s crankshaft. The hole for the drive pin was marked out from the original part of the coupling using a jig. Hopefully the photographs will show how the coupling was made. The coupling cannot be completed until the new paint on the hull is hard enough to handle probably about a week. After which we will find out if the measurements taken before painting were correct. Until then something else will have to be found to play with.

Take care Tony.

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#25 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 07 Dec, 2023 04:16
Hi,

A bit of luck, I am now the proud owner of Stuart Turner boiler. A swap was done with the owner of the boiler that was left with me to copy. This is good as now the Henley will have all Stuart Turner products even though they didn’t start life as a unit. It is the correct boiler for the engine but it does not have the fittings to hold it in the Henley hull, which is no big problem.

But before starting work on the boiler, a bit of a disaster on the coupling front, when the engine was run on air the coupling wobbled a lot, far too much to work well. The engine had been overhauled years ago and never used, what had been forgotten was that the threaded end of the crankshaft had a sleeve screwed onto it. This sleeve though reasonably concentric for use with a usual type of coupling, having a 38 mm diameter disc on it accentuated its errors. So, it was plan ‘B’, the hole in the coupling was plugged and drilled for 7 BA. Everything went well and running the engine on air little or no wobble of the coupling disc was visible. A short video can be seen at: https://youtu.be/s4jkU8Avkck

The boiler was missing its funnel so some sums were done to see what size copper tube would be needed to make one. Having decided on the size tube that was needed, a length was cut, this length being decided by using the proportions of a Stuart Turner advertisement for their boiler. The tube had its ends machined square. The tube was then annealed and squeezed in a vice roughly to shape before being finished using a round and square wooden formers and a leather mallet. The result was quite pleasing and hopefully the photographs show how it was achieved.

Take care Tony.

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#26 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 08 Dec, 2023 11:24
Hi,

Before taking the boiler apart to work on it; the burner was refurbished and tried out. A bit of a video at:

https://youtu.be/h25qej22QN0

The boiler was removed from its casing and the water tubes and steam pipe were annealed and tided up. The boiler then spent overnight in a citric acid pickle bath to clean it. After the annealing and cleaning it was found that the nipple on the end of the steam pipe had been soft soldered on, so it was removed and a new nipple was made which was hard soldered in place. As work had been done on the boiler and given its age and a bit battered condition it was decided to do a boiler test. Stuart Turner advertisements stated that the boiler had a working pressure of 30psi, so the test pressure was times 2, which set a pressure at 60psi, well just a tad more which then had to be held for 10 minutes. There were no problems and the boiler was left under pressure to see how much it had dropped by the next day.

Take care Tony.
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#27 Reply
Posted by Stoker on 08 Dec, 2023 14:55
Fully awesome work as usual Tony.

I do realize that hard solder makes a much stronger and higher temperature joint, but at that nipple's location, away from any flame and only likely to experience steam temperature, I would think that a soft solder joint would work just fine. Am I missing something, or are you simply being certain that everything is done as right as rain?

#28 Reply
Posted by Tony Bird on 09 Dec, 2023 02:42
Hi Daniel,

"I do realize that hard solder makes a much stronger and higher temperature joint, but at that nipple's location, away from any flame and only likely to experience steam temperature, I would think that a soft solder joint would work just fine. Am I missing something, or are you simply being certain that everything is done as right as rain?"

A soft soldered nipple would be more than adequate and possibly originally used by Stuart Turner. It would have been left had the solder not boiled during the annealing process. The nipple was hard soldered as it is my default when soldering all boiler fittings, possibly because in the days of gainful employment I rarely used anything else.

Have a great Christmas and a Healthy New Year.

Take care Tony.

#29 Reply
Posted by Stoker on 09 Dec, 2023 08:32
Thank you for the detailed reply Tony ....... "Right as Rain" in your usual fashion, which is why I enjoy, while often also learning, by watching your threads!